The grounds on which the house sit are truly breathtaking, overlooking a meadow and the Firth of Forth on one side and a magnificent courtyard on the other. The house, for all it’s grandeur, is only one room deep, so all of the great rooms on the ground floor have views in both directions. The noticeable exception is the library, which only has windows to the east, to let in the morning sun, a boon to scholars working by candlelight if not by sunlight. I loved the library! Even though it doesn’t have any books in it (they were all deeded to the National Library some time ago) the floor to ceiling bookshelves are there. You really get a sense of scholarly pursuits and lively discussion happening in the library. It was not hard to imagine David Hume or Francis Hutcheson coming through the doors into the library – as they occasionally did.

I also love how the family preserved everything from successive generations. Everything from the over-the-top 18th Century rococo decor to the toy koala Lady Antonia acquired in the 20th Century, it’s all there. Quirky and homey in a way I didn’t expect. I don’t know if this was intentional or if it was a matter of the expense associated with redecorating, but it makes one feel that the family really existed as a cohesive unit. Ideas as well as material goods passed from one generation to the next. The inscription over the front door says it all: Lavdo Manentem. In Praise of Those Who Stay Here. This was a family home.

Apparently we were on the lawn of historic Newhailes House (Edinburgh…National Trust owned), and it was called the cabinet. The big windows behind us used to open up out of the library and all the clever people staying in the house would come down here to be in nature and think…….

Well we think it’s a great muddy walk……..we ran and ran and we think we saw a squirrel in the trees…….

The remains of a pavilion at the end of the water garden, once with cascades, pools, rills and other pavilions, at Newhailes, now a National Trust for Scotland property, at Musselburgh, just outside Edinburgh.  The estate, once largely abandoned, and its handsome house largely abandoned too (the owner lived in a couple of mostly watertight rooms), contains some fascinating stuff.  When GEORGIAN GARDENS was written, it seemed only a matter of time before the estate was split up for development, and the house demolished.  Stephen Switzer, about whom there is plenty in the book, was not known to have worked so far north, but it perhaps to him that the garden owes a number of features, including the remarkable raised walk that wound around the perimeter of the estate, allowing the ladies and gentlemen of the house not only a dry walk, but fine views of the landscape inland, and of the Firth of Forth to the north.  The walk, mostly brick built, though ruined in places, is up to 1.5m above the general ground level.  It’s worth exploring.

The house is open, has much of its original decoration, but is subject to guided tours only.  Some of the guides, if you are of impatient nature, might have you reaching for a gun.

Newhailes- Nice 18th century estate with pool/pond, shell house, and water fall cascade. You can see the shell house here-

Newhailes shell house

The cascade is what we excavated, which was pretty cool.

Newhailes cascade in front of shell house

The cascade went through two phases of construction. One, was a nice clean cut sand stone and the other was when they made the cascade match the re-dun shell house by putting on all sorts of fake lava and coral, you can see some of it in the middle cascade side. The thought is that the shell house was suppose to be a volcano (we found smoke stacks in the back) and laid out was shells leading down to fake coral. MY personal taste is for the original cascade (which was huge, that pic is only one side) but that was a different time.

Aimsfield- Largest walled garden in Scotland, built in 1783, and we dug the glass house. It was actually a really interesting and surprising dig. Two different heating systems were discovered covering the progression of technology in the 1800s. Lots of other goodies and pretty intact structures. I call it instant gratification archaeology because you find such intact walls and don’t have to squint to see if a stain on the ground is man made or natural. Any archaeologists worth his salt has at one point dug a burnt tree thinking it was a fire pit feature but no worries with this sort of archaeology. Hope to have more photos but here is the digging crew:

aimsfield archaeology crew

Photos from David and Stuart’s facebook albums because I didn’t bring a camera

For this week’s artifical theme, I’ve chosen a photograph I took during a recent visit to Newhailes House in Musselburgh, Scotland.  The house was built by the distinguished Scottish architect James Smith in 1686, and bought in the early 1700′s by Sir David Dalrymple, of the Scots legal and political dynasty, who were responsible for significant improvements and additions to the house and grounds.

The National Trust for Scotland recently acquired the house from the Dalrymple family and is working to conserve the house in such a way as to leave it as ‘untouched’ by modern hands as possible.

As you can see the windows aren’t real . . . this is because of a window tax  that homeowners were forced to pay during the 17th and 18th centuries.  Some houses from this period have bricked-up window-spaces to avoid paying the tax. 

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